At the Maidu Museum and Historic Site in Roseville, CA, the last days (until the end of March) of the exhibit Empowering Our People, Artistic Expressions of Native American Children are fast approaching. The exhibit showcases the colorful artwork of Native American Children ages 5-18 from the American Education Program of the Sacramento City Unified School District.

I am/was always the photographer of the family. I also loved going through albums and boxes of photos my mom and grandma had saved. Unfortunately we forget to write down who all is in the picture and soon we are left with unknowns, not-sures, no-clues and possible relatives in so many pictures! I found a cute little project on the grandparents.com site that got my creative juices going again. Take a look here at the article Why Family Photos Matter by Beverly Beckham. When I get mine done, I’ll post it – but don’t hold your breath till I do so since I still need to get my Christmas cards out!

Today was fun sharing our weekend adventures with the people at work and friends on the phone. It was like a trip down memory lane. We’d jump from one of our weekend adventures to someone’s remembered adventure from long ago. Had all kinds of smiles and grins. Just like the adventures in Grandpa, Do It! I Do It, Too!, once triggered the stories flowed from one cherished memory to another. Rainy days, sunny days, cloudy days all had their special moments. It was a lot of fun!

Grandpa Ron and I had a great weekend in Portland with Austin, Bella, Madison and family! It had lots of surprises, twists and turns, yet it was a whole lot of fun and very insightful for us.

Austin is so much taller and so much more vocal! Bella is so much more a young lady as well – she’s four. I had fun one-on-one time with Austin on Friday while Grandpa Ron was serving jury duty. Then Austin, Bella and I went back to the Portland airport and picked up Grandpa Ron – practicing counting to a hundred and twenty five along the way.

Then on Saturday Bella and I went with Mommy to her Baby Shower while Grandpa and Austin went to the Vancouver, WA train station and watched trains move around.

Back in the hotel room Austin used the portable luggage holder as his own train. He climbed in, sat on the middle straps and showed us how he was moving his train – with air brake releases, clunking and sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh-ing and all. Sometimes he was the conductor and sometimes he was the engineer. It was a lot of fun watching his imagination at work. I do have pictures so I’ll get them posted – maybe tomorrow night. Now it is time to unpack and get to bed for bright eyes for work in the morning!!

Today Austin and I spent two hours at the library reading lots of different books that he picked out. The day was rainy so we stayed inside! It was a lot of fun! He would pick several books out and hand them to me. Then we sat in the Children’s Room and read them together. Then he picked out some more. We read them. Then I thought he was done but he pulled out a book he recognised from school called Ladybug Girl by Jacky Davis (Author) and David Soman (Author, Illustrator) and he wanted to take it home to show Mom. BUT I didn’t have Mom’s library card with me and he had to write his name to get his own card, so the librarian suggested we either put it on 3 day save or go up to the Reading Room to read it. Austin decided to read it NOW so we made it up the stairs to the Reading Room only after side-stepping for Austin to grab a transportation picture book and a horse picture book as well. So that was another hour or so.

At the end we signed a hard-cover Grandpa Do It! I Do It, Too book and donated it to the library – since it is HIS library after all. That was fun, too!

Grandpa Ron and I had a great time at the California State Railroad Museum yesterday in Sacramento, CA. We wandered through the Lincoln Exhibit and learned many new tidbits of information. For example, neither of us knew that Abe Lincoln floated down the Mississippi River on a flat boat to take items to market in New Orleans. It gave him a small impression of how large the United States is and helped ground his firm belief that railroads were a way to unite the country. The name of the exhibit is “The Rail Splitter and the Railroads: Lincoln, the Union and the Golden State.” It will be showcased in the Museum’s Theater Mezzanine Gallery through February 15, 2010.

We were there for a special Trainmaster Reception event for museum donors. We had a really wonderful time meeting other patrons of the museum and tapping our toes to the music of the Black Irish Band as they sang lots of railroad songs along with their Irish and Italian numbers.